{This post is part of a series of excerpts from my forthcoming book. It is continued from last Monday.}
View From The Floor
Secretly, privately, the creative voice in me longed for expression. With the same guitar in my arms, on Saturday afternoons when every other girl was outside, I sat on the floor in the dorm and wrote songs of longing and discontent.
View from the Floor
Always sitting on the floor. Guitar in hand, on the floor, in hand, on the floor. A single piece of paper and a pencil or pen. Sitting… lying… writing… trying. Something coming first. Could be the chords… a single line of melody… a few words… a feeling… an idea. A single drop… followed by others… the flow increasing… becoming steady… and strong… love growing in my heart. From the chords, a progression… and rhythm… from the words, a verse… then a refrain or chorus… a story emerging in song… building… building… then settling… coming back home. Swept up in this wave… of love… seeing the newborn growing in me… knowing I am not the source of this… loving… settling down… in admiration.
Of all my creative endeavors, it was while writing songs that I felt the unseen force flowing; something beyond me was coming through. I was connected with the creative spark of life, the Source, the Life Force, what many call God. It was using me to express something. I was a channel. And I was Alive… with a capital A! But despite this bliss there were long periods of silence, when I abandoned my creative process.
I had been trained to take the safe road. And so I studied what I knew from childhood—psychology—and proceeded down the path of science. What makes us tick, and why we do it all? It was another route to my feelings. It was the route my mother had chosen before me: not the expression of feelings but the study of them. But, I never stopped stretching to see over that wall. Ultimately answering our questions about life can never replace the direct experience of it.
And you?
Q: What are you doing when you feel the unseen force flowing?
Continued next Monday…
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Share your story – leave a comment. And live CREATIVE!